There’s a stack of generic “how to hire a contractor” articles online. Most of them tell you to “check references” and “get three quotes” and “make sure they’re licensed.” All true. All useless.
If you’re hiring a builder for a custom home or a serious renovation in Greater Vancouver, here are the questions that actually separate a careful quote from a hopeful one. None of them are clever — they’re just questions most owners don’t ask, because they don’t know they should.
License and insurance basics
Get the boring stuff out of the way first.
- In BC, residential builders working on new homes (or substantial renos that touch the structure) need to be licensed under the BC Homeowner Protection Act, administered through BC Housing. Ask for the licence number. Look it up.
- They should carry general liability insurance — $2M is the floor for most projects, $5M is normal for anything serious. Ask for a current certificate of insurance, not a verbal “we have it.”
- WorkSafeBC coverage in good standing. You don’t want to be the owner whose unlisted subtrade gets hurt and turns out to have no coverage.
- New home warranty. Required on new builds in BC; ask which warranty provider they use.
If any of the above is hedged or “we’ll get you that,” walk away. None of it should take more than a day to produce.
Questions about the quote
The quote is where most of the information you need is hiding, if you ask the right questions.
“Walk me through how you arrived at this number.” A builder who quoted a house in two hours from a brief is winging it. A builder who can describe their unit-cost breakdown, what’s in the allowances and why, what’s excluded and why, and where the contingency line came from has actually done the work.
“What’s your contingency, and what triggers it?” A real budget has a contingency line — usually 5–10% of the build cost — for genuinely unforeseen items. Some builders bury it. Ask. A builder who says they don’t include contingency is either understating the price to win the job or planning to absorb surprises through change orders later.
“What are your allowances, and are they realistic for the finish level we discussed?” This is where most owners get caught. The cabinetry allowance for a “mid-range” finish is wildly different across builders. Ask each bidder what they’ve allowed for cabinetry, appliances, flooring, lighting, tile, and plumbing fixtures. Then ask a kitchen showroom what those numbers actually buy.
“What’s excluded, and what’s the order-of-magnitude cost of each excluded item?” Permits, surveys, geotech, landscaping, appliances, window coverings, finished driveway, fencing. If the excluded list isn’t priced even roughly, you don’t know the actual cost of your build.
Questions about how they actually run a job
“Who’s the site superintendent on this project, and how many other jobs are they on?” A super running one careful job at a time builds a different house than a super running four overlapping ones. Both happen. The first costs more. You should know which you’re paying for.
“What’s your relationship with your key subs — framing, electrical, plumbing, mechanical?” Long-term subs who know the builder’s quality standards beat lowest-bid subs in almost every measurable way. A builder who tenders every sub on every job is a different operation from one who has a stable crew. Both can be fine. The lowest-bid model has more variance.
“How do you handle change orders?” Ask for a sample change order. The good ones are dated, scope-itemized, priced upfront, and signed by both parties before work proceeds. The bad ones show up as line items on the next month’s invoice.
“What does your draw schedule look like?” Reputable builders draw against completed milestones — foundation poured, framing complete, drywall done — not against fixed weekly amounts. If a builder wants 30% on signing and another 30% before framing’s done, the math is telling you something.
Questions about their track record
“Can I see your last three completed projects’ original quote vs. final cost?” This is the single most revealing question on the list. A careful builder will hand you the spread (usually 3–8% over, occasionally on-budget) and walk you through what drove the variance. A hopeful one will deflect, or quote an aspirational “we always come in on budget” that isn’t survivable in practice.
“Can I talk to the owners of those projects?” Not the references they hand-pick. Specifically: the owners of the last three completed projects. If a builder won’t connect you with their most recent owners, that tells you something.
“What kinds of projects do you turn down?” A builder who’ll take any job in any neighbourhood at any spec level is hungrier than they are selective. That’s information about how they’ll run yours.
The red flags
In rough order of how seriously to take them:
- A quote that’s materially lower than the others.
- A refusal to itemize.
- A reluctance to share recent project final-cost data.
- Verbal-only commitments on materials, subs, or timeline.
- A draw schedule weighted toward the start of the project.
- A site visit that didn’t include a real walk of your specific site.
The green flags
- A site visit that took longer than you expected, because they were noticing things.
- A quote that took longer than you wanted, because they were costing it carefully.
- An itemized exclusion list.
- A willingness to show you a sample contract before you’ve committed.
- References they don’t seem to mind you talking to.
- A builder who admits, unprompted, what they’re not good at.
The right builder in Greater Vancouver — for your kind of project, on your site, in your budget — exists. Finding them is mostly a matter of asking the questions everyone else skips.